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I fought the public service and the public service won

Joe Hildebrand

by Joe Hildebrand

17 Dec 11:00am

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Filed under: Bureacracy, Government, Passport, Travel

88 comments

It is one of life’s rich curiosities that the primary function of any government department is to make its citizenry despise it. This is most pronounced at the national passport office, where prior to confirming you are a citizen of Australia the bureaucratic apparatus feels it must first provide you with a host of reasons why you would not want to be.

Stamp. This. Pic:DFAT

Australian passports last for 10 years, because that is how long it takes the Department of Foreign Affairs to process a new one. But recently there have been some great breakthroughs in this area.

Now it only takes them two weeks to renew your passport - still slow by real world standards but the blink of an eye in the public service.

Yet even this lightning-fast turnaround time is not a personal best: If you pay an extra $100 fee you can get your passport processed in just two days. This is promoted as a “priority” service but the real message is a far greater truth: namely that the government is more than capable of renewing a passport in 48 hours but simply chooses not to.

In other words the bureaucracy deliberately withholds its labour in order to extort what is effectively a $100 bribe to grease the wheels. This is the sort of institutionalised corruption that would make a Colombian blush but at the Australian passport office it’s just another day at the office, albeit a day that ends at 4pm.

As it turned out I was one of those people who did need to get their passport in two days in order to get a visa for a work trip. To ensure the fastest possible turnaround time I thought I would bypass Australia Post and go straight to the passport office. Otherwise Australia Post would have had to post my application to the passport office and it is another of life’s rich curiosities that the one thing Australia Post is not particularly good at is posting.

I diligently filled out my renewal application form, got the photos taken to the prescribed specifications - specifications designed to make you look as much like a terrorist as possible - and trotted to the passport office.

As everyone should by now be aware the Department of Foreign Affairs’ passport office is not the same place as the Department of Foreign Affairs’ State Office. Indeed, the most prominent feature of the State Office’s website is a giant notice telling people that they cannot lodge their passport application at the State Office. This raises two questions:

1) If so many people were showing up to the State Office trying to lodge their applications, why did it not occur to the Department of Foreign Affairs to provide that facility there? and

2) What does the State Office actually do?

At any rate, I was one of the sensible ones who proceeded to the passport office as directed at around 1pm and found myself at the end of a long single queue in front of two windowed counters.

One reason the queue was so long was that passport seekers had, quite reasonably, visited the passport office on their lunch break. Another reason was that one counter attendants had apparently decided that they too would take a lunch break, thus reducing productivity by 50 per cent.

Nonetheless, a brisk half hour later I arrived at the counter and handed over form, only to be told that I needed to make an appointment - a message that was helpfully accompanied by a stern tap of a pencil on the corner of the form that said “Appointments are essential”.

I was then given a six-digit receipt number and told to come back in an hour, at which time I entered the six-digit receipt number into a computer that then printed out another number and instructed me to wait for it to be called.

This was a more exciting process than it sounds, as I soon discovered the numbers were not called in the linear fashion of the traditional Arabic numeral system, but rather beamed on to the screen by what could only be a random number generator.

This made waiting for an appointment quite similar to playing bingo, and was undoubtedly the highlight of the day (although not for a father who committed the impardonable sin of taking his young daughter to the toilet when his number came up and was publicly rebuked in the middle of the room by a female bureaucrat who looked like Nurse Ratched).

Finally my number was called and - after being scolded myself for letting my signature go over the lines - I was at last able to hand in my form. Suddenly the $326 fee seemed like a small price for my freedom and I handed over my bank card gladly.

“Oh no,” the woman shook her head at my naivety. “You’ll have to make another appointment for that.”

For something really worth waiting for follow me on Twitter here: @Joe_Hildebrand

Most commented

88 comments

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    • Dissident says:

      10:35am | 17/12/11

      Hey Joe, stop paying out on Government departments. Some of them are pretty good.

      Over here in WA the DEC does a ripping job with controlled burns.

      Reply

    • Col. of Blackburn says:

      04:06pm | 17/12/11

      Yes #Dissident
      And if you try and circumvent their fun,  and try and do firebreaks around your rural property, they will throw you in gaol!

    • St. Michael says:

      10:43am | 17/12/11

      Basically you can summarise the entire public service, State and Federal, by one visit to a Department of Transport office.

      Witness the waiting room filled with frustrated people bearing a rainbow of different coloured-tickets, inscribed with alphanumeric gibberish that bears no relation (wisely) to how many people actually got seen by any given servant that day.  At least if you get into the office and your ticket number implies that roughly 400 people have had the same ticket before you and somehow got seen, you might be a bit more forgiving.  This is why most tickets do imply that.

      As a corollary, witness the floor covered with said tickets, disposed of by people so frustrated with the delays they decided to toss it and drive their unregistered vehicles and take their chances, pleading insanity when the cops pick them up.

      Witness the strange servants of the public moving behind the glass partitions.  How is it possible for a human being to walk that slowly? Does time flow more slowly behind a public service counter? Or did MIB 2 hit on an actual truth when they exposed how most people behind the desks at US Post Offices (another public service institution) are actually aliens with little concept of how Earth society actually works?

      “Public servant” is, I think, a bit of an interesting title.  About 150 years ago, had any servant behaved the way your average government department employee does, they would have been taken out the back of the servant’s quarters and flogged.

      Reply

    • TChong says:

      11:02am | 17/12/11

      Tell that to the Ambo, nurses or doctors who just may keep your whingeing hide alive if you ever in a car accident etc
      Public servants, all of them.
      I’ll bet St Mick, your one of the type who say “the govt should do this” that , or the other, when, and only when you think its necessary , from your own myopic POV.

    • Sybil the servant says:

      11:34am | 17/12/11

      Indeed, and notice how the brits call them “civil servants’. Is there an irony there somewhere??

    • TrueOz says:

      12:23pm | 17/12/11

      @St. Michael
      Bring back the floggings I say - but since they are PUBLIC servants - make the floggings PUBLIC. That would be a far more entertaining way to spend the afternoon than in a crowded transport office. grin

    • St. Michael says:

      05:04pm | 17/12/11

      “I’ll bet St Mick, your one of the type who say “the govt should do this” that , or the other, when, and only when you think its necessary , from your own myopic POV.”

      Nope.  Government is at best a necessary evil, because it’s process-oriented and is riddled with union agendas that contribute to its inefficiency.  I don’t doubt there’s some small role for government, bt by and large less is more when it comes to the civil service.

    • Dave C says:

      08:17pm | 17/12/11

      T Chong there is a Universe of difference between a Teacher, Nurse, Cop, Social Worker, Prison Guard etc etc and the drones that work behind a desk day in and day out enforcing useless red tape bullshit rules making the poor people who Que for hours on end beg for service.

      The former actually deal with the real world and the people in it, the latter are the deserving subjects of Joes article.

    • Tim says:

      08:00am | 18/12/11

      Ah public servant bashing, a fun sport for the ignorant.

    • Norma Bradley says:

      11:01am | 17/12/11

      Tried all that in 2005 when my sister was dying in NZ.  Trouble was my old passport in my married name had expired 6 months before.  I didn’t want to be known by my now defunct name (long and Polish) for another 10 years so requested the new passport in my maiden name.  Fair enough?
      Next problem was that I had arrived in Australia in 1975, I didn’t need a visa, or a passport.  So I couldn’t provide one as requested in my maiden name.  I married an Aussie in 1976.  I also became an Australian citizen under my married name.  My NZ birth certificate wasn’t enough proof for the Passport office here of my birth name! 
      The answer I was told was to change my name legally to my maiden name, as the office of Births Deaths and Marriages didn’t have any proof of my maiden name!  Not so, my maiden name was on the marriage certificate, the birh certificates of my two children and my divorce papers.  So after a long debate, and my sister’s health fast declining, the powers that be in Births Deaths and Marriages changed a law/rule and accepted my marriage certificate as proof of my maiden name and allowed me to change my name legally to my original birth name!  I got my passport on the way to the airport, and saw my sister just a day or two before she passed.

      Reply

    • rory macneil says:

      11:17am | 17/12/11

      I could tell you my experience with Centrelink but it would fill a small book, so I will precis:
      I had been on a disability pension for some years and 6 weeks before I turned 65, Centrelink sent me a letter informing me that as I was having a birthday soon I was eligible to ‘apply’ for an Age Pension. The letter also informed me that I had a choice of staying on the disability pension as there may be benefits that I was receiving that were not available on the Age Pension. I thought OK, no hurry. I will fill the out the form and apply at my leisure. After I turned 65 the pension was stopped and when I rang and asked why I was told I had not let them know which option I wished to take ie   stay on the disability pension or move to the Age Pension.
      One of the requirements to change over was that I had to prove who I was (even though Centrelink had contacted ME) ie the 100 points story, birth certificate, drivers licence etc.
      It appears the birth certificate doesn’t count towards points; you have to produce it but the 100 points must come from other documents.
      They took proof of my banking details (which they had already, remember I was already receiving a disability pension).
      I don’t drive but gave them my boat licence but although it is issued by the same department as a drivers licence it is only worth half the points.
      I gave them a gas account but because it hadn’t been paid it was worth zilch.
      Telstra account? - no, I receive it online. Passport?, no it is expired. Electoral role? yes; I gave the clerk permission to look it up on the internet - “we do not have internet access” he said.
      So I went home and copied my electoral role listing from the net. This was rejected because I should have a card from the electoral office stating who I am etc etc. I then rang the electoral office and they said cards were no longer issued but if I came to their office they would give me the required proof. I gave this to Centrelink.
      I then received a letter the next day informing me that my application for a Disability Pension had been refused because I had not provided the department with sufficient evidence as to who I was. And so it went on.
      After four visits to the Centrelink office, three phone calls and a lot of frustration everything in place after 6-7 days.
      All this from a government department that was already paying me a pension; and I was born in Melbourne and lived at the same address for the past twenty years.
      What surprises me is that a tax number is worth no points. Their letter to me in the first instance is worth no points.

      Reply

    • PW says:

      02:25pm | 17/12/11

      The strategy with Centrelink appears to be that they (or rather the Government) want as many retirees as possible to be self-funded. So they make the hoops that must be jumped through to get welfare from them more and more onerous.

      Makes perfect sense to me.

    • Jane2 says:

      09:13pm | 17/12/11

      Easy to explain, tax file number and birth certificates have nothing on them to actually confirm they belong to the person who is trying to use them. I could create a series of numbers to fill in for a TFN and use someone elses birth certificate. The rules changed because people had done this. The original letter could be presented by anyone as well.

      As for the cutting you off, that is just stupid computer systems that were written wrongly. Doesnt help you but…

    • Rose says:

      03:18am | 18/12/11

      Finding 100 points of ID is child’s play, nothing too hard there, answering letters on time and following instructions, also a piece of cake.
      There are some real issues issues people have with with Centrelink, but what you have described is your own fault.

    • Seth Brundle says:

      10:12am | 19/12/11

      Centrelink have to go to such lengths to confirm your identity in order to curb the millions of dollars that are fraudulently obtained from them each year.  Speaking as someone who still pays tax, I welcome the effort they make, even though it may inconvenience a small minority of people who seem incapable of proving who they are, like you.
      Considering the fact that Centrelink exists mainly to give away free money I am always amazed at the amount of whinging they attract.  Dont want to wait in a queue?  Go live somewhere without welfare.

    • Alf says:

      11:37am | 17/12/11

      Public Servants are as good/bad as their political leaders allow them to be. As a rule, ineffective and incompetent government = inefficient and incompetent bureaucracy. This is a consistent hallmark of any Labor government.

      Reply

    • Pete says:

      04:07pm | 17/12/11

      Derp derrp
      Because the public service runs soooo much differently when the libs are in power
      Deeeeeeerp

    • Alf says:

      04:42pm | 17/12/11

      @Peter. Correct. And thanks for your support.
      Didn’t quite understand the Dalek bits though…are you sure you are Okay??

    • Gratuitous Adviser says:

      04:49pm | 17/12/11

      Alf - You get what you pay for and that goes double when the Libs control the treasury.  Are you honestly arguing that issues with public service (passport office for example) only appear when Labor is in power?  Interesting argument.

    • Alf says:

      05:05pm | 17/12/11

      Gratuitous Adviser. “...that goes double when the Libs control the treasury”.

      Errr…what goes double? The better operation of the public service?

    • Andrew says:

      03:58am | 18/12/11

      Hey Alf,

      Do peoples farts stink less when there is a liberal government in power?

    • HappyCynic says:

      03:24pm | 19/12/11

      @Alf

      Care to provide any evidence that the bureaucracy runs better under a liberal government?  Or are you too one-eyed to admit the truth, that most of the inefficient and useless bastards in the public service today are the same useless and inefficient bastards who were working there 5 years ago.

      Governments change all the time (not that you’d notice the difference in Australia since they all try to out-moderate and out-bore each other), but the one constant of all countries with a functioning government is the bureaucracy never ever changes.  It’s wieldy, cumbersome, slow, boring and completely inept.

    • Sickemrex says:

      11:40am | 17/12/11

      The ticketing system at Medicare, DOT and some banks makes me want to ask for 200gm of hot Hungarian and a tub of marinated olives but I’m too scared I’d be taken out the back and shot.  My local PO is a sheltered workshop, there’s no way I’d trust them with a passport renewal.  They look blank when handed a parcel collection note.

      Reply

    • fat bastard says:

      11:40am | 17/12/11

      “2) What does the State Office actually do?”.  Well the state departments handle trade, under DFAT, the fattiest part of Foreign Affairs.

      Reply

    • mick says:

      12:06pm | 17/12/11

      If you want some real recalcitrant public service then try dealing with your local council in an intelligent and fair manner.  Good luck.

      A pity that all levels of government refuse to fix it.

      Reply

    • Kheiron says:

      06:08pm | 17/12/11

      Ah, local council, there’s a pain in the knob if ever there was one.
      My boss wants to expand the business by putting up a new shed. He’s been trying to get council approval for about a year now.
      The council told him he had to have some huge firefighting system installed, with pump and water storage, for health and safety and all that. Compared those specs with our firefighting equipment supplier, and it turns out we’re being told to put in a system ment for apartment buildings with 30+ levels…for a metal shed.
      Next, it was the parking. Council claimed we needed to supply a 50 car parking area if we wanted to expand. This is a small town mind you, and there’d be barely enough room to put 50 cars down the main street.

      Anyway, what do you expect. By law, we’re forced to deal with these people and places. They can do and charge whatever and that wont change. It’s a situation not conducive to decent customer service.

    • PW says:

      12:28pm | 17/12/11

      There is really very little reason why anyone should need a new passport at very short (as in 48 hours) notice. Thus the operation is structured around a turnaround time of 14 days, whereby certain economies of operation are implemented. If, for some reason, you want the 48 hour service, someone specifically has to deal with your application. For this you pay an extra fee. I see absolutely nothing whatsoever wrong with such an arrangement.

      Reply

    • Lapun says:

      02:53pm | 17/12/11

      Well PW, I’ve had such a situation with a parent dying overseas and my desire to get there in time to see my parent.  Under that circumstance even 48 hours is too long and I would want,  much better than 48 hr service, which with travel time involved could take 4 days to get to the destination.  Only good enough for Public ‘servants’.  What a misnomer!

    • PW says:

      05:40pm | 17/12/11

      If you have a parent overseas who you know is going to get sick or die some time or other, why would you wait until that actually happens before applying for a passport?

      Losing your passport overseas comes to mind, but the Australian embassies seem to perform an admirable service in this regard.

    • Dave C says:

      08:28pm | 17/12/11

      No PW wrong wrong wrong and wrong. If you have a young healthy relative who has moved overseas for a planned 1 or two years and the next thing you know they have had a car accident or have had a stroke or heart attack and there is a risk of death then you will need a passport in a hurry.

      Joe then summed it up brilliantly,

      “In other words the bureaucracy deliberately withholds its labour in order to extort what is effectively a $100 bribe to grease the wheels. This is the sort of institutionalised corruption that would make a Colombian blush but at the Australian passport office it’s just another day at the office, albeit a day that ends at 4pm” 

      Also in this modern day and age of technology why the hell does it take 14 days.  We have scanners, email attachments of the 500 points and 6 different types of proof of identification for whatever document you need and templates on programs and correct types of paper to print them out. Assuming the customer after they get a call to tell them its ready these things can and should be instant, why are they not?

    • Jane2 says:

      09:25pm | 17/12/11

      @Dave because all passports are printed in the one place on the special paper. You dont want them to be able to be printed anywhere as it is harder to stop possible theft.

      Its like with money, if everyone had the ability to print off money then chaos would reign.

      As for the 14/2 day rules. At 2 days you push everyone who applied in time back down the queue. If everyone applied with more than 14 days to spare then you would probably get your new passports within 7 days but its people like Joe who cause the longer time for everyone else.

    • PW says:

      11:39am | 18/12/11

      Dave C, Ok if this happens to you, you pay the extra hundred bucks. I just don’t know what you are whinging about.

    • Eva says:

      12:24pm | 18/12/11

      I also wonder why it takes 14 days. I have two passports that need to be renewed within six months of each other. The brits turn it around within a week although I have to post it to Canberra and then have is posted it back but the Aussies take 14?

      And 48 hours? I needed an aussie passport within a day back in 2000 and they managed that alright with a little palm greasing. Dropped the form off in the morning and picked the passport up again at 3pm.

    • Craig of North Brisbane says:

      02:25pm | 19/12/11

      Last time I had to get my passport renewed, I put it in two months before I’d need it, and got it back in about five days.  No complaints here.

    • Captain obvious says:

      12:45pm | 17/12/11

      These face to face services need to be out sourced to the private sector.

      Reply

    • Rose says:

      03:03am | 18/12/11

      Why? The public service is more efficient than banks, the most inefficient organizations to be found anywhere, public or private!!

    • Seth Brundle says:

      10:23am | 19/12/11

      Or better yet, make them call centres, and move them to India.  Great idea captain obvious.

    • Dave says:

      02:12pm | 17/12/11

      Hmmmm. You obviously have a bit of a problem reading and following instructions. Ive renewed my passports and never had a problem. A small tip though: if you dont want to get caught in the 1pm lunch line use a bit of brain and take an early lunch break (11.30am is usually good). You know, with all these major traumas in your life, Joe, I honestly wonder how you manage to get out of bed every day. By the way, by the time my grandfather was 32 he had been shot at and bombed repeatedly germans, had to swim for his life off a boat sunk off dunkirk, spent time in a hospital with bullet wounds, and then spent more time disarming large unexploded bombs. One seriously wonders how you would cope with such things. Given you cant seem to cope with a bit of mundane bureaucracy one suspects the answer is, not very well. Youre a whinger, Joe. And you obviously have about little ability to cope with the small tribulations of life. Its an ugly combination but thats the bottom line.

      Reply

    • Chris_D says:

      05:39pm | 17/12/11

      @Dave, I was thinking along the same lines.  It seems every problem Joe had was due to a lack of planning, taking adequate precautions, or simply following clearly stated instructions. 

      Unfortunately for us all, The Punch has just become a whinge fest from authors about things they don’t like, whether or not it is largely due to their incompetence or some other underlying personal attributes that they aren’t willing to change.

    • Tator says:

      08:25am | 19/12/11

      Reminds me of Keith Miller talking about the stress of playing cricket
      “Stress, these guys won’t know what stress is until they have a Messerschmitt up their arse”

    • Seth Brundle says:

      10:32am | 19/12/11

      Yeah Joe, you should stick to writing non-complaining articles.  Like that day you had where nothing bad happened and you spent the day on the couch drinking coffee and watching tv - why didnt you write about that instead?
      As for guys who have endured hardships such as having “Messerschmitts up their arses”, havent you noticed they seem to be the ones complaining the loudest?

    • Cat says:

      02:35pm | 17/12/11

      There can be emergencies which require a passport at short notice and, even though they are rare, the relevant authorities should be able to handle them - and handle them with courtesy.
      When I left university I attempted to join the APS. I had the points to do it. They offered me two jobs, one was a customs control officer - for which a pre-requisite physical requirement was stated to be the ability to climb ladders in the hull of a ship and carry parcels under a certain weight. The other was as a postal delivery person. The prerequisite for that was a licence to ride a motorbike and the ability to maintain it.  On my application form it was clearly stated that I had a physical disability which would preclude climbing ladders or obtaining a licence to drive. Despite that I was turned down by the public service on the grounds that I had been offered suitable jobs and refused to accept them.
      I took the matter to what was then the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. They sided with the APS and refused to take the matter any further.
      Shortly after that I was advised not to put in any further applications.

      Reply

    • Michael says:

      02:39pm | 17/12/11

      @PW

      Well, if u were in Indonesia or any other country, this sort of fee arrangement, I would strongly suspect, u would be screaming as a corruption….

      Reply

    • PW says:

      05:43pm | 17/12/11

      A hundred bucks or even more to get my passport replaced overseas? Which would be covered by insurance anyway? No it wouldn’t to be perfectly honest.

    • Erich says:

      02:47pm | 17/12/11

      How about this for a solution? Renew your passport in plenty of time before it expires. If you do this,  there’s no rush, no queues, no hassles, no worries. Since passports are good for ten years, it’s a once a decade problem. How hard can it be?

      Reply

    • TrueOz says:

      08:47pm | 17/12/11

      @Erich
      Actually, it’s a once in every 9 1/2 years problem. Australian Customs will not permit you to leave the country with a passport that has less than six months of validity left- try it and see what happens!

    • marley says:

      07:16am | 18/12/11

      @TrueOz - I suspect Customs could care less.  Most foreign countries, though, won’t let you in if your passport has less than six months to run.

    • Chris says:

      02:52pm | 17/12/11

      Ah yes. A Senator once told me the story of how, in her Ministerial days, she was faced with a problem. She sent instructions down the line as to how the matter was to be handled. A reply came back “it’s not policy”. She sent a reply that it was policy and please to deal with it. Another reply came back to say it could not be done as it was “not policy”.  She tried again and received the same answer. She then brought in the person responsible for seeing that the policy was implemented.  He also told her it was “not policy” and she asked him for proof of that. He showed her the policy of the previous government of a different persuasion. She pointed out the error. He told her that yes, they did know that. Why had they not followed the new policy? Because most of the staff were active supporters of the Labor party and this was a Coalition government. They were determined to make things as difficult as possible. He was quite open about it.
      This my friends is the sort of nonsense the APS gets up to. They enjoy their petty little games - and the rest of us just have to wear it.
      And yes, this is a true story… I was the person who had the problem that needed to be resolved.

      Reply

    • TrueOz says:

      08:53pm | 17/12/11

      @Chris
      I’ve always found that the threat of serving public servants with a Writ of Mandamus tends to get their attention and make them follow procedure - quickly. This little know tool is effectively a court order that causes a public servant to do the job they have been employed to do. They should be used a LOT more often to make the worthless air thieves accountable.

    • Groucho49 says:

      02:55pm | 17/12/11

      Oh yes. Like the batts,eh. No thanks.

      Reply

    • baal says:

      03:10pm | 17/12/11

      being an ex public servant i never really have issues becuase i read forms correctly and am pretty organised.
      Joe you simply sound like another person who does not take due diligence in personal matters then acts like a victim.
      You are a journalist, you travel, why did you let your passport expire.
      The form told you to make an appointment, why did you not make one.
      When i was a public servant i used my discretionary powers to do everything i could to help nice people who genuinely needed help. People who expected a system with all the checks and balances to still move as flexible as a unregulated private organisation and were rude were treated by the book.
      Also there is a reason some things are not outsourced, just look at the leaks and budget blowouts in america to understand why.
      Also when pollies slash public sector jobs the roles are just filled by contractors paid out of general revenue becuase the work still needs doing. I made a fortune doing contract work for departments hamstrung by hiring freezes.
      So many stupid people. So little time.

      Reply

    • Ben says:

      05:29pm | 17/12/11

      Baal you are missing the point. Public servants operate at a snails pace and still complain about how overloaded they are. I used to be in the advertising industry. We could produce a 12 page catalog in about 3 days, often working until midnight. All while 100 stores were screaming out for them. Mistakes were expensive so we didn’t make many and our income relied entirely on delivering the job on time. Public servants have no idea what real pressure is. They are the new Elite. Overpaid, underworked, and protected.

    • Richard says:

      06:07pm | 17/12/11

      You make good points in many ways, and my own experience with government departments and institutions has been largely positive, providing one approaches the situation with patience and proper manners.

      However, there’s still no denying that private enterprise can provide all and any imaginable service more efficiently, and ultimately more cheaply too, than governments ever can.

    • Jase says:

      06:07pm | 17/12/11

      See Baal, this is another aspect of public service which needs to be dealt with, what gives any public servant the right to decide who genuinely needs help and who does not.
      Everybody pays the same application fee or processing fee and they should be processed as fairly and quickly as possible, not giving special service to one person because you feel sorry for them.

      Yes I do expect the system to work like a private organisation, I hate to break it to you but the private sector has the same if not more checks and balances in place. The only difference is that the private sector has competition which rewards efficiency, something which the public sector does not have to worry about.

      Imagine if we had 2 department of transports and the only funding these departments received was from processing applications, etc. I bet any money that the competition for that funding would result in a big change to productivity, minimal productivity would eventually lead to no jobs for those public servants who failed to produce results.

    • Seth Brundle says:

      11:52am | 19/12/11

      The only reason my public sercive job exists is because the private sector is unable to provide the services and content we do at a lower price.  Every year they bid, every year they fail.  The day the private sector can do what we do more cheaply and efficiently is the day my team gets disbanded and I have to find a new job.
      BTW, public servants nowadays dont have any more protection than any other employee.

    • baal says:

      04:17pm | 17/12/11

      oh, you did not post my comment. People with glass jaws shouldn’t throw punches lightweight.

      Reply

    • wolfie says:

      05:20pm | 17/12/11

      Correct me if i’m wrong, but aren’t the majority of you here the same ones that cry like babies every time the Government lets in one of those evil forgein criminals, or screams in shrill fear when a boat turns up on our shores and “proper checks” have not been carried out? You’ll find the reason it takes a while for a passport to be issued is due to AFP, ASIO, Centerlink, ATO, BDM and additional checks from several other departments to occur. I think this is sensible. You’d be the first folk to complain if someone was issued with an Australian passport who wasn’t entitled to it. Still, it’s far easier to whinge about pretty much everything isn’t it.

      Reply

    • Vaunted says:

      04:21pm | 18/12/11

      Wolfie, Hildebrand is hardly a terrorist. He’s just a normal Aussie citizen looking for intelligent, willing SERVICE from his government; a simple renewal of a passport he already holds. The computer has been invented. Databases exist. Two weeks is a joke, and $100 for what would be regarded as probably longer than normal turnaround in the private sector is no more than extortion. Deep down you know it’s true, and that’s the reason for all the bullshit secret-service excuses.

    • D says:

      05:31pm | 17/12/11

      This does not surprise me at all. I am a duel Australian/US citizen. It was far easier (and cheaper) for me to renew my US passport from Australia, than it was to renew my Australian passport.  And I got my new US passport within one week.

      Reply

    • Jase says:

      05:58pm | 17/12/11

      There is no accountability in the public service, and as a result the service part is non existent.

      What sh*ts me is when a particular department is taking excessive time to complete a request for my business, which I am paying for by the hour mind you, they have the nerve to tell me they are under funded and understaffed. How the hell can a department be underfunded if they are charging me nearly 5x the hourly rate they are paying the employee to process my requests??
      If the taxpayer was funding my request, I would not care, but the fact that they charge huge fees for pathetic service just drives me up the wall.

      Make the public service accountable to complete tasks in a given time and on a particular budget and we might see some progress in this country. One of my favourite aspects of doing business in 3rd world countries is that you can slip some USD into the request and magic happens.

      Reply

    • the international passport says:

      06:34pm | 17/12/11

      if you vote Labor,  the public service will help you as they will have enough staff and workers.
      if you vote Liberal, then you are history as the public service is history !

      Reply

    • Rose says:

      03:12am | 18/12/11

      And how the hell would the public service know who you vote for? Is it tattooed on your head?
      The public service is what it is, if you can’t cope I wonder how you deal with real challenges. Dealing with the PS is simple, do everything you can online (renew rego etc), if you do need to go in, treat the staff with respect and have your stuff organized. Simple really!

    • Not an idiot says:

      06:57pm | 17/12/11

      I don’t know what your problem is, Joe. I also needed a passport in 2 days, so I filled out the paperwork online, booked a time at AusPost, they sent it to the Passport Office and I dawdled down to the Passport Office 2 days later to collect it. Seemed pretty simple to me, the only sticking point was the $100 processing fee

      Reply

    • Smudge says:

      07:27pm | 17/12/11

      What a load of old cobblers…

      Reply

    • Dave C says:

      08:13pm | 17/12/11

      One of the best quotes ever from The Simpsons was when Bart was doing Work Experience at the DMV (The USA equivalent of the RTA where you get your licence and rego renewed) and I quote…..

      “some days we dont let the line move at all, we call those days week days”

      Reply

    • Craig says:

      09:28pm | 17/12/11

      Why not simply ensure that you renew your password in time, such as six months before it falls due?

      If you always have a passport, none of the rest is an issue.

      You have ten years to prepare to renew it - isn’t that long enough?

      Letting a passport lapse is your failing, not the government’s.

      Seems like the public service is moving a lot faster than you do!

      Reply

    • Beth says:

      10:27pm | 17/12/11

      Ugh passports. Because I was born after 28/08/86 (by exactly 2 weeks) I needed to provide a parent’s full birth certificate, or a passport that was issued on or after some date in the year 2000. Dang, my previous passport was issued in 1997, so ordered Mum’s full birth certificate and set to go. Then filling out my daughter’s passport form, uh oh she’s not born before August 86 either obviously, so I need to provide one of her parent’s full birth certificates… that parent being born before 28/08/86… (so both my husband and I are born after that date) or a parents passport issued on or after that date in 2000. Beginning to worry my 18 month old daughter too much of a terror suspect to travel OS. Call up passport office and ask if I should wait to get my passport first, as it will be issued after the year 2000 and use that for my daughters application. No, apparently although it says “on or after” it actually means “on or very very soon after.” So I am told I will require one of MY grandparent’s full birth certificates for my 18 month old daughter who was born in Australia to two parents who were both born in Australia. I ask “are you sure you don’t mean HER grandparent? ie, my parent, who’s birth certificate I’ve already got?” “no your daughter’s grandparent, we need to be sure of citizenship.” (!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?) Went to post office, they called passport office for me, yes turns out my mum’s birth certificate will be fine for my daughter’s passport as well. After almost half an hour on phone. They’ll be having this issue increasingly in the next few years as more people my age with young children try and get passports for them!

      Reply

    • Diva says:

      03:19am | 18/12/11

      You think you had it bad. I have an adult relative who has a disability and he has tried on at least three occasions to get a passport (not from the Sydney office). All attempts to date - unsuccessful.

      He has been humiliated, talked down to on each occasion, leaving the passport office frustrated and upset. On one occassion I went with him to try to help him but the woman told me most severely to mind my own business.

      In the end, after another unsuccessful attempt, we called the passport office and spoke to the manager, explaining the situation.

      The manager was very kind and said that if my relative presents again she will be advised by front office staff, and she would personally assist him.

      The trouble is that now, he is too anxious about the whole thing that he will not go.

      Reply

    • sparky says:

      05:03am | 18/12/11

      Back in the 70’s I had a mate who worked for the GPO ( now Australia Post) whenever I had a grizzle about snail mail, he would say ” if you don’t like the service, take your business elsewhere.“Another mate who is a Vietnam Vet, went to the local DVA office with a query.It wasn’t a lunch break, but he said while he was waiting to be served,he saw employees seated at desks reading Viz comics and MAD magazines.My brother, who worked for what is now Centrelink, said it is practically impossible to be sacked from the department.That kind of setup breeds inefficiency and tardiness.As GPO mate said, if you don’t like the service….

      Reply

    • Seth Brundle says:

      10:14am | 19/12/11

      Ahhh…the old “impossible to get sacked, sit around reading comics all day” myth.  Thats one of my favourites.

    • Alex says:

      02:05pm | 20/12/11

      Its not a myth, not with the new FWA rules, you cannot sack someone as that is bullying, i am no joking, there are also general protections laws now that state that if you are not happy about being sacked for reading comics you can sue your employer. This then goes to an arbitration where the employer is hit up with an amount to pay out or it goes to court which costs a huge amount of money and time. So the employer usually pays the amount to be done with it. Its huge business in NSW with ambulance chasing law firms and basically driving jobs off shore.

    • Jane2 says:

      06:27am | 18/12/11

      There is potentially hope for the future, if the new generation of public servants has the patients and perseverance to wait out the “deadwood”, “road blocks” and “speed humps”, whom almost entirely are 10 years max away from retirement. We too want things to move faster and more efficiently.

      It would be so nice if you could easily fire a public servant! It would stop it from becoming the sheltered workshop it is!

      One of my most amusing squawks at the moment is “we need higher pay to attract suitable candidates”. They dont appreciate it when you point out that if a higher than average wage working less hrs and in a clean office environment cant attract people then you have a problem and its not the pay, its one of the following:
      1) Advertised in the wrong places….seriously someone who wants to be a mail person will not be looking in the Australian, no offense.
      2) The process is designed to make people fail. If an engineer with 15 years of experience in the field you want, cant get an interview because they didn’t respond to “selection criteria” in the desired way, then the issue is the process not the lack of applicants or the pay. The whole process is designed so if you aren’t already a public servant or know someone who is, you have buckleys chance of getting an interview. Bring back public service exams and pronto! Especially since we now know a portion of applicants dont write their own application and you discover after you employ them that they can barely write their own name!
      3) Reputation. No-one wants to be a public servant despite the generous pay and that cant change till we can get the people to retire and we can improve things.

      The trouble is the “road blocks” seem to be in key positions and seem to have the core duty to prevent change at all costs. (they are the ones that will send back things because you forgot the full stop at the end of paragraph 3 on page 15 of a document.). The “speed humps” seem to migrate to customer contact roles where their slow pace can be blamed on customers and the “dead wood”, well after 5 years I still havent seen the “dead wood” do anything but they are always too busy to do anything else.

      Ok public service gripe over.

      Seriously everyone, join the public service! You get paid EXTREMELY well and if you have any get up and go and brains, you will climb the promotion ladder really fast. The only reason I stay is I know just how good this pay is. I have been in the real world.

      Reply

    • Lush says:

      06:28am | 18/12/11

      Apparently even after my husband producing drivers license, birth cert extract, and expired passport wasn’t enough to get this prove he was in fact ‘male’ I suggested he should flop it out on the counter. Male enough for you??

      Reply

    • thatmosis says:

      06:30am | 18/12/11

      Public Servant, what a joke, they send out letters to your address with your name on it and then ask whats your name and address. Apparently writing the same as the name and address on the letter is not acceptable. The red tape, lack of service and wasted time that the Public service in Australia incurs is beyond a joke. Time to set in place work incentives, like get off your fat butts and do the job you are paid for efficiently or get the sack, works for me.

      Reply

    • Comon Sense says:

      08:03am | 18/12/11

      Craig, you have far too much common sense - most people have none!

      Reply

    • iansand says:

      08:20am | 18/12/11

      Step 1 Read the requirements.
      Step 2 Comply with the requirements.
      Step 3 Smile.  The person on the other side of the counter is a human being who the arseholes on your side of the counter tend to treat as something sub-human.

      Mission accomplished.

      Reply

    • Chuck says:

      09:14am | 18/12/11

      Could never figure out why your passport is of little use to all and sundry when o/s for the last 6 months. Seems strange when it is allegedly valid for 10 years (not 9.5).

      The more recent trend with illegal immigrants not having passports has set the scene and perhaps we won’t have need of a public service anyway?

      It has been my experience that the intransigence (aka incompetence/red tape/ bureaucracy/bloody mindedness etc) of dealing with the PS is similarly mirrored even in dealing with Telco’s, banks, councils and utilities.

      Reply

    • marley says:

      10:32am | 18/12/11

      @Chuck - most countries give visitors an automatic entry for six months.  If your passport isn’t valid for that entire period, then they generally won’t let you in at all.

    • JG says:

      09:15am | 18/12/11

      lots of anal retentives with nothing better to do with their lives than watch expiry dates; PM; Erich; Craig; others . . . .

      Reply

    • iansand says:

      01:05pm | 18/12/11

      If you use your passport you fill in the date of expiry at least once on every trip.  It is a question on every incoming pax card I have ever completed.  And on every visa application I have ever filled in.

    • marley says:

      10:33am | 18/12/11

      Or you could look at it another way.  Why should your lack of planning become someone else’s emergency?

      Reply

    • thatmosis says:

      05:18pm | 18/12/11

      e are not talking about emergencies just complete and utter misanagement from the Public service, a misnomer if there ever was one. Every bloody 5 years I fill out a census form and every time I apply for something from the government I have to supply the same information that I have supplied 100 time before and they cant correlate that into a central point. Bloody hell, even K Mart or Big W can tell me where I live, what I bought 10 years ago, in seconds and how much I paid. If I order a part for my tractor that I bought 10 years ago from the same firm they have my name, address, telephone number and the model number of the purchase up on their screens even before i give it to themIf business can do it why not this bloated and inefficient Public Service.

      Reply

    • marley says:

      06:06pm | 18/12/11

      @thatmosis - you do realize the info in the census is supposed to be kept segregated from any other info provided to government?  That’s the whole point of it - that it’s private information that you give because you have an assurance it won’t be passed on to other agencies.  This is a good thing.

      As for why the civil service is as inefficient in some areas as it is, well, I reckon that’s because it uses a lot of contractors to set up its systems.  You know, private enterprise.

    • Seth Brundle says:

      10:18am | 19/12/11

      Public Servant Bashing : reading the comments one would assume that the rest of Australia are working their hands to the bone, breaking their backs for the good of the nation, doing it tough.  The decades I spent working in the private sector never seemed to resemble that picture, though.  No matter what industry I worked in, what level I worked at, it was always the same - 90% of people getting by doing as little as possible, and a small minority of go-getters who enjoyed the work and were ambitious enough to go beyond the call of duty.
      It’s interesting though that all of you hard-working true-blue-aussie-battler types have time to comment on “The Punch”, though, isnt it?

      Reply

    • Fred says:

      11:49am | 19/12/11

      I think you might find that they will be very helpful if you have a genuine reason to have your passport issued in an emergency like a sick relative overseas. Why don’t you try calling them instead of writing about it on here.

      Reply

    • Emily says:

      02:12pm | 19/12/11

      I got my passport renewed this year and it arrived 5 days after I submitted it. I followed all the instructions, made an appointment at the post office and it was a piece of cake.
      Also, I’ll think you’ll find the Australian passport service is world class. In the US, an ‘express’ passport takes 4 weeks.

      Reply

    • Wideeyedgirl says:

      06:35pm | 19/12/11

      The only positive side of how useless our public service is is if you are supplying to them, they are so shit with money or so out of touch with reality, you can rip them off blind and they have no idea. Not so great though for your honest tax payer funding the idiots though, I.e me! I don’t think they’re aliens, I think they are zombies that had to donate their brains to be eaten by the other zombies already on board, upon entry into “service”.

      Reply

    • Alex says:

      02:00pm | 20/12/11

      Nothing compares to dealing with Austrade. OMG i want a job with Austrade so badly, they do absolutely NOTHING and get paid good unlimited tax payer money for it. The joke about public servants not looking out the window in the morning as then they would have nothing to do in the arvo IS Austrade. Ask any business owner who has gone there for help with exports.

      Reply
 
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